Slightly later than anticipated (2 months later than anticipated actually) but I finally took delivery of my log cabin a couple of weeks ago. What ‘delivery’ actually meant was several hundred pieces of wood and a 30 page installation manual!

Construction has been pretty swift considering I’ve only spent 2 days on it so far. Walls and roof are up, the outside has been painted and we got the felt on the roof last weekend. Just need to put the glazing in tomorrow and the underfloor insulation and floorboards then I can set about wiring up my solar panels. All very exciting 🙂

Just thought I’d give you a quick update on what I’m currently up to. The last couple of weekends have been spent digging, pruning, levelling and visiting the local recycling centre followed by the delivery of a ton of ballast! This ballast was then turned into the concrete base for what will be my new studio… The Englishman’s Castle (Ok, a log cabin then if you prefer).

Anyway, as I don’t tend to do these things by halves, the extra dimension to this particular home studio is that I’m hoping to have it partially solar powered! So, it’s been a few evenings swotting up on all things solar and working out what the energy consumption is of all of my equipment. Funny enough, studio equipment doesn’t actually use that much power as long as you steer clear of big power amps and mixing desks, neither of which I use any more. So for a fairly modest outlay, I’ve already bought myself some solar panels, a regulator and an invertor which will provide the 240v for my equipment. All I need now is the log cabin itself (which will be arriving any day soon) plus a deep cycle battery to run it all off.

Of course, once the outside and solar is taken care of, it will be time to kit-out the inside, and for that I’ve been looking at the excellent Ikea Hackers website. It’s really inspiring to see the weird and wonderful ways in which people bend and shape the Ikea furniture. I’ve alreadly got my eye on some modular shelving complete with angled shoe racks which will be great for racking up my old keyboards.

Anyway, no point in showing you any pictures of the concrete base (unless you REALLY want me to), but hope to have something to show in the next few weeks.

In the mean time, if you want to see a really cool renewable energy studio, look no further than Thomas Dolby’s Nutmeg of Consolation, a wind and solar powered studio built into an old lifeboat!

Also, Ariel sent me one of his older demos, a track called ‘Feel the Rush’ which he thought might fit my style of music pretty well and he suggested we collaborate on a new version. The re-recorded backing track is all but done and Ariel is planning to go in the studio soon to cut the vocals. Can’t wait to hear the result!